Early to Rise - Stick It - Work

Now that Tevia had the baby, I have little excuse not to get into shape. I guess that isn't correct, since I am in shape. I have little excuse not to lose a little weight. So what is the best way to lose weight? Well, in my mind it is to do something you love. I love basketball. It was two years ago I stopped playing basketball in the mornings and that was when my weight came on. Not too much, but enough to bother me. I mean, come on, the media forces us all to think we should be waifs, even men. I am a sucker too.

So this week I started playing basketball. Thing is, here in North Phoenix the church by me plays at 5:30 - 1/2 hour earlier than the guys in Scottsdale. That means for me to get there I have to wake up at 5:19. I played Monday and Friday mornings, in addition to Wednesday night in Scottsdale and then I played this morning at 5:30 AM at the local high school with some other guys. So 3 days this week I woke up at 5:19 AM. That is early. It has been fun though. I still don't have a six pack, but I figured it might take more than one week. Too bad. One thing for sure, it makes it a lot easier to fall asleep at night. But it makes it much harder to read scriptures in the morning.

Last night we watched the movie "Stick It." It is basically "Bring It On" but with gymanstics. I loved it. It was a fun movie and had a good moral. It also was a good commentary on the state of gymnastics today. I used to love and follow gymnastics a lot, but I haven't been interested in years. The sport is struggling and they need some changes. Is the movie worth the price of a ticket - probably not. But it is a great Netflix choice.

Work has been very interesting. For years I have thought our company (my division) has struggled with abulia, which often means the "inability to make decisions" (it is also a neurological disorder, but I like the other meaning better). When a business is unable to make decisions, this leads to little change. Change is good - and necessary, especially if you want to progress. With our new leader, decisions are now being made, quickly. That is good, but takes adjusting to when you are used to no decisions. This week I learned that they are going to take my compensation team (4 employees) and move them to another department. The rationale is to put them in a department whose expertise and core competency has to do with finance. Our department and my team is not focused on that, so we can hopefully gain some efficiencies by moving them. I am on board with this, but it will be hard as I love those guys and 3 of them have been here for years, including David Kennedy who actually served in my mission years ago. This will also free me up so I can take on more responsibilities. The one thing my new boss is good at is fairness. He needs his Directors to do more, but in order to do that understands he has to take other things off of us. And he has done this. In this example I lose 4 headcount and that responsibility and now will have additional headcount to do other things (one of which is to solve a problem he wants resolved before year-end which is coming to my plate next week).

But I am happy with all of this. I am finally being stretched again and being able to focus on certain things. Over the past few years I have been the guy who does everyting. That is good, but it also gets taxing. Jimmie appears to want to harness my talents for certain things in order to improve as a company. I believe I can, so it has been fun.

As I go through these changes, I have come to prove with myself a belief that many people have (including myself up to this point) which is: employees don't always need money or promotions to motivate them. The past year or so Tevia and I have discussed possibly making a change if a promotion or other things (like international travel) didn't happen. Now I am once again excited about things as I have been given a vision - some leadership - which I have craved. This makes work more exciting and I can think longer term. It has been fun.